Tasha. I was wondering when this moment was going to come.
“He’s just closing out the case on Riley,” I say. “It’s nothing.”
“Nothing?” Cora’s voice is sharp. Piercing. “A cop comes all the way out from Milwaukee, and you don’t even think to tell me?”
“It has nothing to do with you.”
Max comes suddenly bounding back like a golden retriever puppy, updates me on his loot, then slips back into the night. I don’t know where Willow is.
Once he’s out of earshot, Cora says, “Anything that involves this family and the police affects me. Affects Dad.”
“Cora, I—”
She whips her face toward me. “First, you lose your mind at the book club. And now some cop is here asking questions? People are saying all sorts of things.”
“Things like what?”
She leans in and lowers her voice. “What do you think, Rose? That you did it. That you killed Riley.”
“I didn’t—”
She cuts me off. “I don’t want to know. Don’t even tell me, because I don’t want to have to lie for you. But that’s what people are saying. I know personally of three people who went out and bought your book after all this talk started. They wanted to read the scene where the husband is killed by the wife. So good for you. More sales.”
My head is swimming. How did this all spiral out of control so quickly?
“Tasha,” I say.
“What?”
“Tasha Collins.”
“That horrible girl from high school?”
“Yeah, she’s still horrible,” I say. “And I think she lives near Dad, because she walked her dog in front of the house.”
The impatience is obvious on Cora’s face.
“So?”
“So this was right after the cop left the house, after he interviewed me. He was sitting in his cruiser with local PD when she walked by.”
“Great,” Cora says. “She’s probably fueling all this. Between that and the book club freak-out, everyone thinks you’re a killer.”
“I can’t control what people think.”
“Don’t act so helpless,” she snaps. “The Riley situation is not my problem. Your last book doesn’t concern me. What does concern me is your new one. Did you change it?”
I clench my gloved fists into balls, then release, over and over. It doesn’t relieve any tension.
“My editor said it was too late.”
“Fuck.”
Willow appears out of nowhere, more like a ghost rather than a zombie. It’s clear she just heard her mother.
“Geez, what’s your problem?” she asks.
“Nothing.” Cora sucks in a breath and holds it, as if trying to ground herself. After she releases it into a sigh, she says, “How’s trick-or-treating?”
“Lame. I’m too old for this.”
“But you were planning to do this very thing with your friends,” Cora says.
Willow shrugs. “That’s different.”
“Well, why don’t you hit a few more houses? Your aunt and I need to finish a conversation.”
“Whatever,” Willow says. “Sorry to intrude.” She turns and walks away into the street and away from the houses, and it strikes me how vulnerable my niece is. That she’s too young to be dressed like that and just walking away into the night. I want to call her back, tell her to stay with us, but I don’t. I watch her drift away as Cora launches another volley at me.
“Maybe you’re not understanding all this, so let me break it down for you.” Cora stops walking and pulls my arm so I turn and face her. Her breath fogs my face as she talks. “There are rumors about how your husband might have died because of a scene in your current book. Those rumors are now viral in this town because a cop is talking to you about Riley.”
“I said it was nothing.”
Cora bulldozes over my comment. “And now your next book comes out in a few months, and in that book, there’s a scene in which a teenage boy dies in the house of two teenage sisters. At the base of the fucking stairs. And you don’t think that’s a problem?”
“You’re overreacting,” I say, not because it’s true but because I know it’ll piss her off even more, which I can’t help but want in this moment.
“Either you’re an idiot or playing the part exceptionally well,” she says.
Something shifts inside me where I no longer care about crafting a perfect argument. I don’t want to hurt Cora with words. I want something more. I reach down and grab her wrist. She tries to pull away, but my grip tightens, squeezing her bones through my glove as hard as I can.
“Ow, Jesus. Let go.”
“Don’t talk to me like that,” I say. “I’ve had enough of you telling me what to do.”
She yanks again and gets nowhere. I keep my fingers in their vise grip, and I know it still hurts, though she’s not giving me the satisfaction of admitting to it anymore.
For a moment, I think she’s going to hit me. I can see it in her face, her darting eyes full of fight-or-flight indecision. And in this moment, I want her to. I want her to take a swing, because I’ll take her down. I will take my sister right to the ground, and I won’t shed a tear.
I see the moment she realizes this very thing, because her gaze lowers to the ground and her arm goes limp. I let go of her wrist and she immediately takes a step back.
“We all know you were always the violent one, Rose.” Cora manages a feeble smirk.
“That’s not true at all.”
“Sure, it is. After all, you were the one who killed Caleb Benner.”
The name smashes into me, and I think it’s the first time I’ve heard it from my sister’s mouth in at least ten years. I turn my head to see if anyone is in eavesdropping range, but no one is. Still, what a foolish thing to say out loud. Foolish, and a lie.
“You know that’s not true,” I say. “You were the one.”
Now the feeble smirk blossoms into a hearty smile. “That’s not how I remember it. And that’s not the way I’m going to describe it to the police once
